Uh-oh. This episode of Mr Deity will fire up some denunciations. Take a deep breath, and remember, he’s satirizing religious attitudes.
Listen through to the end, though — he has an excellent suggestion. This weekend is Thanksgiving, and instead of sitting through another football game, put a Mr Deity episode on, and get the whole extended family talking about irreverence. Come on, it’ll be fun! There might even be a food fight!
Ross Olson of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association has sent me the results of the survey that was given at the debate. He is trying to spin it as supporting the claim that this kind of debate was “useful” — but I’m unimpressed.
About 500 people attended, 290 returned the survey. The survey basically asked two questions about whether they supported teaching creationism in the classroom initially, and the same two questions to be answered after they listened to the debate, with a final question that asked whether the debate was held “on an intellectual level that can serve as an example for other discussions”…and with that, their motives are exposed. It wasn’t to actually work through the problem, but entirely to give credibility to the creationist position. Contrary to Olson’s interpretation, it tells me that this whole farce was a bad idea from the beginning.
When I looked at the numbers, what jumped out at me that there was almost no change in the audience’s position. People who came in firmly opposed to teaching ID in the schools left with the same opinion (no surprise there, Bergman was a kook); people who came in demanding that creationism be given equal time left still feeling the same way. There were a couple of crazy people whose opinions did shift — from being initially opposed to creationism to being for including it in the curriculum. I call shenanigans on that; Bergman did not even try to argue for such a position, so these were ringers who walked in, gave false answers to the first questions, and then pretended to have been converted to a pro-creationist stance by Bergman. That is flatly unbelievable.
The numbers were boringly static. The comments were much more entertaining, and I’ve included them below the fold; to make it a little easier to sort out who was saying what, the comments from evolutionists are in blue, the creationists are in red, and the ones who switched significantly from the two pre-debate questions to the two post-debate questions are in purple.
What I mainly take home from these data is the simple fact that, even though this debate was a complete and embarrassing rout for the creationists, their minds were not changed at all. Debates with creationists are a waste of time, except for the small benefit of entertaining evolutionists with an amusing spectacle, and the larger detriment of giving liars for Jesus an opportunity to piously announce their support for rational discussion…despite the fact that they don’t offer rational discussion.
Enjoy. This is part of a whole series at Symphony of Science.
One of the peculiarities of my recent debate with Jerry Bergman was that he announced his definition of irreducible complexity, which he claimed to be the same as Michael Behe’s…and under which carbon atoms were IC. It was utterly absurd. A reader wrote to Behe to get his opinion.
I recently attended a debate between Dr. P. Z. Myers and Dr. Jerry Bergman on the topic of “Should Intelligent Design be Taught in the Schools?” The topic of irreducible complexity came up, and Dr. Bergman had an interesting definition. His definition of irreducible complexity was “two or more parts are required for something to function” and that if you “remove one part, it will not work properly.” The example he gave was that a carbon atom is irreducibly complex. He said that “you will not have a carbon 12 atom unless you have 6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons, therefore it is irreducibly complex.” Dr. Bergman went on to say that, the only things that aren’t irreducibly complex were elementary particles, such as a lepton, because they could not be broken down into smaller parts. Much of the audience was confused about this, because as Dr. Myers pointed out, your definition of irreducible complexity dealt with biochemical systems. Dr. Myers also pointed out that carbon is formed naturally in stars, and if Dr. Bergman’s definition of irreducible complexity were correct, it would show that irreducible complexity occurs naturally, therefore negating it as an argument for intelligent design. Dr. Bergman claimed that he was using your definition of irreducible complexity in the example of the carbon atom. That is why I wanted to ask you for a concise definition of irreducible complexity and if you believe Dr. Bergman’s example and definition fits with yours.
Thanks for you time,
David
Behe wrote back.
Hi, David, nice to meet you. Dr. Myers is right; my definition deals with biochemical systems. I take the underlying laws and elements of nature as given. I do not know where Prof. Bergman got the idea that the concept applies to atoms, but he didn’t get it from me. In Darwin’s Black Box, I defined IC as:
“By irreducibly complex I mean a single system which is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”
Best wishes.
mjb
I got the answer right. I feel so dirty now.
However, I will go on (as I did in the debate) to explain that while it is definitely true that many biochemical systems actually do exhibit the property of irreducible complexity, the fact that an existing pathway can suffer a loss of function when modified says absolutely nothing about whether it evolved or not. Antecedent versions of the current pathway may have 1) had different functions (the exaptation explanation), 2) had less stringent requirements for function because other physiological functions had less specific demands (the coevolution explanation), or 3) had redundant or alternative paths to the final output of the pathway (the scaffolding explanation). IC, even as defined by the author of the concept, is no obstacle to evolution.
Representative Patrick Kennedy has been barred from taking communion by the Catholic church. This is a politically motivated action to intimidate a politician into supporting a position on a political issue opposed by the church, abortion rights. Hmmm…using religion to commit extortion. How unusual.
I feel for him. I have a few consecrated wafers somewhere around the house; I’d love to send him some so he could cannibalize Jesus, but unfortunately, I also got threats to send me poisoned wafers from a few good Catholics, and I haven’t tested them. I’d rather not be responsible for murdering a Democrat. Maybe some of you could help him out; go to Mass, pocket a slice o’ Jebus, and send it to poor Patrick.
If he’s smart, though, he’ll just desecrate it. The article makes much of the fact that the Catholic church has not excommunicated him, but only denied him the sacrament. A little blatant heresy might be enough to get them to help Kennedy escape fully from the clutches of that cult.
I repeat: Skepticon II was a blast, and I think what really contributed to the fun was that there was a lot of young people organizing it and in the audience, and no stodginess was allowed. Make sure you go next year — it really was one of the more entertaining and enthusiastic meetings I’ve gone to this year…and it was held in the heart of the Bible Belt, in the city otherwise best known as the capitol of the AssGod church.
I have to answer a couple of questions I was asked repeatedly. I dazzled everyone with my sartorial flamboyance, and on the first night I wore my infamous crocoduck tie. I’m sorry, you can’t get it, at least not yet. Josh Timonen had it made, and so far, only Richard Dawkins and I have one. Maybe it will show up in the RDF store someday, or maybe it won’t.
On the second day, I was asked about the Creation “Museum”, and ripped open my shirt to reveal a portrait of the epic battle that was waged on our visit. People asked where they could get that, too (although one audience member showed me hers — she’d already got one). This one is easy.
Just go to Jen‘s store, and you can order them right now. You can also get it on a black shirt, too.
You’ll have to get your own boy toy, though.
By the way, the photograph is by Ziztur — who has a nice blog.
That’s a photo of a coral slurping up a passing jellyfish. For some reason, I find it vaguely disturbing, and have no idea why my wife would select it.
Once again, I risk stirring envy by putting a picture of a kitty-cat on Pharyngula. I met some people who showed me a nice picture of their pet, which is named after…me!
Here’s PZ Meowers:
And look! He’s blogging!
I have mixed feelings about this: a first-edition copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species has been discovered, which is, of course, great — I do wish I had the pocket change to drop £60,000 to buy it for myself.
The weird part is that it was found in the guest bathroom of an old house in Oxford. Apparently, someone thought the Origin was perfect light, occasional reading for visitors attending to certain private physiological functions, which is nice, if a little trivializing. It’s a bit odd, though, that they put the book there and no one seems to have bothered to notice it for 150 years. I am really curious to know what other books were on that toilet shelf — I’m imagining guests ducking into the bathroom for a few minutes of managing the necessaries, scanning the shelf for a little light reading to pass the time, and skipping over the rare and valuable antique Darwin volume to read…what? A couple of scrolls of the lost plays of Aeschylus, the handwritten manuscript copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and a copy of the Arzhang, the mysterious holy book of the Manicheans? Or was it a yellowed copy of the Daily Mall, a couple of dog-eared editions of the Readers’ Digest, and last week’s TV Guide? This must have been a very curious and neglected bookshelf!
Every year, L’Oreal selects women who have made significant contributions to community service and awards their organization a substantial grant of $5,000. There are ten honorees this year, and they’ve all got good stories to tell. You also have a chance to vote on one of the ten, and the winner of that popularity contest will get an additional award of $25,000 — read their nominations and you’ll see that they all could use it, and you should vote for whatever cause you find most worthy.
However, I will gently nudge you in one direction, suggesting that if you don’t find that any one cause speaks to you, you should consider voting for Shannon Lambert, who manages a local service called Pandora’s Project, which helps survivors of rape and sexual abuse. We’re a little bit biased, though, since Shannon is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Morris. Just take a look, and if you think her work is good, take just a second and leave one vote for her.
